Message posted by Peter Merlin on December 02, 2010 at 9:24:18 PST:
In the article, Paul Bertorelli writes, "Are we at the point in human history where the manned fighter aircraft is on the downward arc of its zenith? The answer is probably yes, but even if it's not, you can see the end from here." People are too quick to dismiss future maned platforms in favor of speculative unmanned replacements. I recently had a chance to talk about UAVs with B/Gen. Robert C. Nolan II, the new commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards. While attending the Air Command and Staff College in 1997, he wrote a paper ("The Pilotless AIr Force? A Look at Replacing Human Operators with Advanced Technology") that addresses these very issues. He noted that UAVs offer such advantages as not exposing a human operator to hazards inherent in combat and that UAVs are not constrained by the physiological limits of the human operator. Even with advanced unmanned technology, however, "airmen still provide the indispensable qualities of flexibility and adaptability." When Nolan wrote the paper in 1997, UAV advocates believed that unmanned vehicles would be less expense to build and operate than manned aircraft but such has not proved to be the case. He told me that the advanced sensors are costly and that it is important to remember how many people are actually involved in operating a single UAV during any given mission. This is certainly true, as I have seen when I had the opportunity to observe some of the NASA UAV research missions. There are multiple UAV operators (pilots), sensor technicians and monitors, ground crew and maintenance personnel, and others (often operating in geographically separate locations). Nolan stressed that UAVs serve as "force multipliers," complementing manned systems - augmenting rather than replacing airmen. In his paper,he wrote that, "No matter how good the computer programmers are or the artificial intelligence becomes there is no substitute for the human brain." One of his best illustrations of this concept was an incident that occurred during Operation Desert Storm. Airborne controllers directed Capt. Landis Cook, leading a flight of of A-10 aircraft on an armed reconnaissance mission in southern Iraq, to destroy a column of tanks moving northwest toward U.S. forces in the early hours of the ground offensive. The tanks were moving at a high rate of speed and kicking up considerable dust so Cook decided to visually identify the targets before attacking. He directed his flight to hold while he flew directly over the tanks at low altitude where he identified them as British Challengers and noted that the lead vehicle was flying the British flag. He relayed this information and was informed that there were no British Units located within his "kill box" and that he had clearance to destroy the tanks. Cook explained that he had visually identified the vehicles as British. Several minutes later, controllers confirmed that the tanks were indeed British. Cook’s ability to quickly assess the situation, disregarding his clearance to fire and relying on his own judgment, prevented a tragedy. There is no question that unmanned vehicles will see expanded use in the future but it would be foolish to see them as a replacement to human crewed systems.
In Reply to: Re: Airplanes as Sacred Cows posted by RickB on December 02, 2010 at 8:04:37 PST:
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